INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[Chaneys Ranch]

Quote: I love the idea too, T shirts would sure say "HEY, its us!"

Quote: C..CHICKENS is so right! The whole easter egger thing is very frustrating. The best way to know what you really have is use the SOP to identify birds. I don't have the book yet, but intend to purchase a copy to understand whats considered SQ or HQ. EE are actually a mix breed so there isn't a standard for them yet.
My main goals are
#1 healthy, happy, friendly birds.
#2 pure breeds that I can improve to my preferences.
#3 be able to offer those bird breeds honestly knowing what I have.
Several people have told me my EE Bunny is a Wheaten Ameraucana. Since I don't know her origin, or background, I call her an EE. I got Bunny and my BR Mabel as give-ups, when we bought a piglet. The guy was planning to process both girls, they weren't laying.
All they were fed is whole corn

hmmmm, wonder why, ugh!

 

[leslea]

Love the red and white trim! Very nice combo!!

Thank you. It's kind of a yellowish green...I was actually going to paint over it with white, but I'm digging the "shabby" look of it, so I think it will just stay yellowish green!

 

[leslea]

jchny~ It all sounds great! Thank you for working on a plan! I suppose the next step is to find out about the reserving the barn/costs. I'm guessing that if we can reserve the barn, the owners will let you know what dates are available and we can get a consensus about a date that the majority of members will commit to, so we are sure that costs will be covered. Speaking of covered, if everyone "pitches in" a "covered dish" for a "pot luck" or "carry in" or whatever your area of the state calls it, the only added expense should be the barn rental.

chick rookie's idea of a Tshirt is great-- we've wished before that we had an Indiana thread Tshirt to wear to events like poultry shows, etc. where we could identify/meet other members. I'm not sure if it could be a fundraiser though since having a small number of shirts printed would make them more expensive to begin with. I can check into some pricing or if anyone has any connections with a screen printer, that would be helpful.

I probably won't be able to do Chicken Fest this year, but I will say I've had great experiences using CafePress for tee shirts. I have an allergic child and when he was a baby there wasn't much awareness about food allergies (no warning labels at that time), so I created a few designs for him to wear. Then, other people asked me to make designs for their kids..and so on and so on until I had made over 400 designs. All my products came through CafePress and they were good quality and have a lot of styles to choose from. I recall it's a one-click thing to choose "apply to all", and then you've got white tees, pink tees, ladies vs men's styles, kid sizes, they even had a shirt for a dog. You can set the price as low to cost as you want, too.

It would be cool & I would def buy a shirt if someone set it up, even if I can't go to Chicken Fest.

 

[CCCCCCCCHICKENS]

That upsets me so much. There are so many people taken in by that :/

I have been waiting to hear that someone filed a law suit. Surprised it hasn't happened yet

 

[LonelyPageTurne]

I have been waiting to hear that someone filed a law suit. Surprised it hasn't happened yet

Who would they file it against? The hatcheries or the store selling them? Also what damages do you think they'd have? Hmm...This might be a good idea. I wonder if simply having an attorney write a sternly worded letter would help. Or calling corporate.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

No they don't have actually Araucana. They get there chicks from a hatchery and no hatcheries have actual araucanas. They mislabel them, they are really Easter eggers. They just label them what the hatcheries tell them to label them as.

The hatcheries actually seem to hedge the issue a bit -

ie on Murray McMurray's site they have the tab labeled "Araucana/Ameraucana" - but then the description reads "Loosely referred to as the "Easter Egg Chicken", our Araucanas/Ameraucanas lay beautiful colored eggs of blue-green shades from turquoise to deep olive. Our chicks have some Araucana and some Americana blood mixed and consequently are not for show.."

Mt Healthy says: ~~Araucanas/Ameraucanas Originally from Chile, in South America they are called the Easter egg fowl. They lay colored eggs: blue, green, pink, and olive drab. These birds vary in size and color, some may have whiskers and others muffs of feathers that cover their ears. Their eggs are reported to have more nutritional value than ordinary eggs.

Cackle Hatchery is actually honest about it - they are labeled Easter Egger and they actually come right out and say they are NOT true Araucana/Ameracaunas ---~~The "Easter Egg Chicken" originally came from Chile in South America, discovered by the Araucana Indians. The true pure Araucana chicken is rumpless (tailless) , has a small curling tuft of feathers next to each ear and come in different pure color types. The true pure Ameraucana chicken has a tail, full beard and comes in pure color types. The Easter Egg Chickens are different because they have a full beard under the beak rather than a tuft and have a tail rather than rumpless and do NOT have pure color types. Cackle Hatchery offers for sale the "Easter Egg Chicken" not the Ameraucana or Araucana chickens for sale. . Cackle Hatchery's breeding program objectives for the "Easter Egg Chickens" are to produce chickens with a wide variety of feather colors, feather color patterns, feather combinations of colors with a full beard under the beak and high egg production of colorful egg shells. The color of their egg shells vary from pale blue chicken eggs to dark blue to various shades of green and a few light brownish/pink eggs. The meat is delicious and it has a taste similar to quail. We do not offer a specific color variety of this breed; however we do breed for a wide variety of colored feathers and egg colors. The Araucana chicken and Ameraucana chickens have a number of different color patterns being worked on all across the USA and are being shown in poultry shows. The Easter Egg chickens are great chickens for backyards, chicken coops, larger chicken houses and for raising free range chickens. The Easter Egger chicken or also called Easter Egg chicken hatch out colored eggs with colored chicks. These colored chicks are for sale online by ordering them below. We hope you sign up for our Cackle Hatchery Newsletter for helpful tips and offers of chickens for sale online free shipping or specials.

To blatantly say that "Araucana are often called Easter Eggers" -- um, NO -- Easter Eggers are often called Araucanas, generally by hatcheries trying to pass off their birds as something they are not.

My point/thinking in what I pasted above is that they are actually covering their butts because if you read through the description the information is there - and that is what they would say if/when a case was brought, "We did say they are EE" -- yes, they also said that they are Araucana/Ameracauna, but since the correct (though misleadingly worded) information was also in the description they have likely created a loophole through which they can pass.

Also, the funny thing is, there is NO reason to mislabel/misrepresent them. Those who purchase the chicks in a retail setting are doing so because they want the fun colored eggs - they would buy them as "Easter Eggers". Anyone who is serious about wanting Araucana/Ameracauna would seek out a reputable source of the birds -- especially if they would stop misrepresenting what is in the retail setting. What I mean is, if I want A/A and I go to stores and see nothing but EE I am going to start doing some research on where I can get A/A and find myself a reputable breeder. If I just want pretty eggs and the store has EE I am not going to care that they don't have A/A - I'm going to buy the EE and be thrilled with my purchase. Why they (hatchery, retailer, etc) feel they have to mislead me (general), the EE consumer, into thinking they are selling me A/A is beyond me.

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Also -Meyer Hatchery actually states that their birds ARE Ameracauna - they address the EE/A issue by saying "not to be confused with EE - as these ARE a pure breed" -- anyone know if that is true or not? THAT would be the one hatchery that I could see having set themselves up for legal issues if they are not selling true Ameraucanas. They also sell EEs so I can't see why they'd go to so much trouble to make a false assertion about their Ameracaunas

 

[Leahs Mom]

Shed moving is a challenge. We have a (floorless) car hauler type trailer, 22 foot long.. we use the super big tall bumper jacks to lift the shed from the sides. DH backs the trailer under the shed, and then we set it down. biggest one we have moved was a 12x20 with a loft. I was holding my breath on that one! We did get a permit due to the width of it tho. He drives semi's, has hauled a lil bit of everything, so he is pretty resourceful on how to load and move big stuff. The first shed was easy, and 8x10 metal shed. We actually lifted the thing and set it on the trailer by hand. shed #2 is a nice heavy wood one, and will be a little more work.
We always clean the site up as a "thank you" to the person gifting it to us.

I was asking because we did the same with my chicken shed but we knew a guy that has a trailer. He jacked it up with blocks and regular jacks

got his trailer under it and off we went.

It was funny...he had an old Farmall tractor that he hauled it out with and then got it hooked up to his regular vehicle to haul the trailer. It looked like "antique farm day" or "hillbilly haven" out there!

We have opportunity to get another shed which is really very small and I'm hoping we can get it without going to such ado this time. But I'd sure like to get hold of some larger ones!

 

[PeacefulWalls]

I was bad!!! Very very bad!!!! Went to TSC and yep you guessed it came home with 6 chicks, 2 feather legged batmans 2 clean legged batmans and 2 Reds, don't know what any of them are... I'm thinking the 2 feather legged are Cochin's, ???? and heard of reds but never had any so dont know anything about them.

Our TSC also has bins with red pullets. The sign says they can be red sexlink (or comet, etc), new hampshire red, rhode island red -- can't remember what else was listed, but essentially anything with red in the name.

Really ??? O So Cool!!! Now if they would just turn out to be Girls!!!!

Well got the new goats home here are some pic's


ok have 4 does and 1 buckling for sale, PM me for info if interested. All are papered.

Someday?? We'd like to have a couple goats or sheep, but not ready to take on anything else new and all the stuff to learn about raising another species! Keep posting the pics, though

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

So - the coop did NOT get finished this weekend (grumble grumble). We did get the poop boards and roosts done, though, and since the nest boxes aren't even needed at this point I think I'll move the chicks out in the next day or two. I just need DH to install a barrier board a little ways into the coop to keep the bedding and such contained. The door swings inward (have regretted that call since the barn was built - but can't tell DH/FIL who built the barn that, lol) and I want to keep things contained so it doesn't start gumming up the door's ability to move. I think once that is done I'll get the chicks moved out. Once he's ready to be out there working again I'll just put them in the horse stall for the day. As soon as the coop is done it's time to tackle the run - that should be next weekends project and then we're good! Can't wait for everything to be finished.